Independent Filmmaking

How To Make A Really Good Movie Without A Hollywood Budget

The Duplass brothers, Mark and Jay, of Puffy Chair, Baghead and Cyrus fame, have once again managed to attach big names to their smaller-than-small, micro-budgeted films. This time around, the brothers convinced Jason Segel, Susan Sarandon, Ed Helms and Judy Greer to work on Jeff, Who Lives at Home, a comedy about a depressed guy who is stuck in a sad-sack, go-nowhere life. The film comes out today.

The Duplass brothers have a knack for mining humor out of pathos, and they always do things their way. We spoke with Jay in Toronto about making films without massive wads of cash, and dealing with A-listers.

What you Do when you need cool, expensive machines but have no money

"We stole the helicopter. It was in the air, and my brother says, 'Jay, there’s a helicopter!' and I swear to God that’s how we got the helicopter in our movie. So, it’s never as big as you think."

How to make sure your film has style

"As a filmmaker, you have to go an extra step and wonder how you can make it stay in your style. You have to loosen it up. I find myself thinking of really weird things. There is this car coming toward me, and where will I be when it comes, and if I didn’t know where it was going, how would I react? So, while they’re rehearsing, I’ll do practice moves and unlearn everything that I know, and figure it out and do it, and when it happens, luckily it works. But it takes an enormous amount of cognition. Mark says it’s like thrift store shopping. You have to work goddamn hard to make it look like it fell off the rack this way. It’s three times as hard to make it look like clothes handed down from his dad."

On Susan Sarandon

"She would walk on set, and every guy was literally [like], 'Wow.' She was blowing our minds every morning."

What Actually Gives A Film Emotional Punch

"We’re trying put together the subtlest version of that which will convey. So that’s why we improvise comic scenes, dramatic scenes, even exposition — we improvise ways that people can receive a little bit of information. We feel we can really be subtle. Then we thread the needle in editorial. As shaggy as our movies look, we’re pulling a rope with you guys, and that’s what we want when we’re in a movie theater."